Wall St ends higher after Fed chief's comments, but posts big weekly loss

Wall St ends higher after Fed chief's comments, but posts big weekly loss

By Chibuike Oguh, Johann M Cherian and Sukriti Gupta

Fri March 7, 2025 4:43 PM

Once again it took just the slightest hint of good economic news to send the indexes soaring again. But that’s not the way the day started, with all three indexes suffering dramatic slumps right out the gate, the Dow down 400 points by noon with the Nasdaq and S&P incurring similar morning dips. It must have been around noon that Powell delivered his remarks that the economy was “in a good place” that shot both the Dow and Nasdaq back into 3-digit gains again by close. But Powell had to strongly caution that the uncertainty created by Trump’s tariff policies is certainly problematic and thus there will be no rush to rate cuts.  

As today’s expert put it with the whipsaw nature of the announcements making it difficult to predict and plan, “the best action when that occurs is to sit and wait.” The indexes suffered weekly losses in the 2.4 to 3.9% range with the S&P hit with its heaviest weekly loss since September. The employment report came in better than January but does not reflect the recent mass federal firings. We are going from “a no landing to a soft landing environment and it’s not pleasant.” With unemployment rising to 4.1% there remain serious concerns about a weakening economy and weaker consumer spending. At 16.9 billion shares traded, volume was above the 16.2 billion average. 

DJ: 42,579.08  -427.51       NAS: 18,069.26  -483.48      S&P: 5,738.52  -104.11         3/6

DJ: 42,801.72  +222.64      NAS: 18,196.22  +126.97     S&P: 5,770.20  +31.68          3/7

Fri 3-7-25 4:43 pm Wall St ends higher after Fed chief's comments, but posts big weekly loss | Reuters